Rodeo Rocky (9 page)

“Don’t move!” Hadley ordered Kirstie, seeing what had happened and running from the overhang with Lisa. “Let the horse handle it!”

She felt her legs shake, her heart beat fast. Rocky had reared up again, he was intent on bringing his hooves down on the coyote, which rolled clear at the last instant. The mustang reared again, the wild dog writhed and staggered to its feet. Tail between its legs, head hanging, it crept away before the flailing hooves landed a second time.

Then Hadley was there, taking hold of Rocky’s tether, making sure that the coyote had had enough and really was on its way. He watched it slink into the brushwood in the shadow of the rocks.

“How’s Rocky? Is he OK?” Kirstie came to all of a sudden, as if a hypnotist had clicked his fingers and released her from a spell. Shock made her body tremble from head to foot.

The old wrangler held him tight, checked his back and haunches for scratches and bites. “There’s not a mark on him,” he confirmed.

“Gosh, you were lucky!” Lisa gasped.

Kirstie shook her head. “Not lucky. It was up to Rocky. He saved me!”

She leaned weakly against him, stroking his neck while he lowered his head and turned toward her.

“Sure thing,” Hadley agreed. He pulled his hat low over his forehead and gave no other sign that a crisis had been narrowly avoided all the time they were at Bear Hunt Overlook, nor during the ride back to the ranch. It was only when they were unsaddling the horses in the corral and Sandy Scott hurried over to find out how Rocky had coped with his first trail ride that the wrangler let anything slip.

He was taking the bay stallion’s heavy saddle from Kirstie and carrying it into the tack room when he crossed paths with the anxious ranch owner.

“Well?” Sandy demanded.

Kirstie watched Hadley’s face. She held her breath and prayed for him to give the right answer. The old man’s narrowed eyes and straight, thin-lipped mouth gave nothing away.

“You got yourself a good horse,” he said at last with the ghost of a smile. “He’s worth every cent you paid.”

8

“OK, we can relax!” Matt announced. He came off the phone with good news for Sandy. “I’ve been speaking with a guy called Jerry Santos. He’s staying with his wife and three kids at Lone Elm Trailer Park. Lennie told him about this place and now he wants to book a cabin and a riding holiday for the whole family, starting tomorrow!”

It was a week after Kirstie had started riding Rocky out on the trails, when the mustang had first won Hadley’s approval. Ever since the day with the coyote, the old wrangler had insisted on taking horse and rider out with his advanced group to show Rocky the most difficult rides and to test out his temperament to the limit. As a further test, both the head wrangler and Charlie had also ridden him. So far, so good, Hadley had reported to his boss. The bay horse had taken every overlook, every cascading waterfall, each challenge that the mountain trails provided easily in his stride.

As yet, there had been no decision to put a guest rider in Rocky’s saddle, but confidence in him was growing. Kirstie felt that it wouldn’t be long now before the ex-rodeo horse became a full working member of the Half Moon Ranch team.

And now the cash flow problem caused by Sandy’s impulse buy seemed to be easing, too. Extra, last-minute guests recommended by Lisa’s grandfather would bring in much-needed money, and even Matt was smiling as he gave them the news.

“Great! So we get to keep Yukon and her foal?” Kirstie walked out of the house with her brother and mom, passing the round pen as they made their way to the corral. Inside the fenced ring, the tiny, coal-black horse skipped and pranced in the early sun.

Sandy nodded, then paused. “Time to give her a name?” she suggested. It was all the answer Kirstie needed.

Stepping on the bottom rung of the fence, she leaned in and smiled at the foal’s antics and at Yukon contentedly nipping hay from a net on the far side of the pen. “Your turn to choose,” she said to Matt.

“A name for the foal?” He was still checking figures in his head, not concentrating on the high kicks and wobbles, the dancing and prancing of the youngster. “You choose,” he told Kirstie absentmindedly, then walked on.

Just then, the little horse tried out a kick with her back legs. She churned up a cloud of dust in the sandy pen. The dust got into her nose, she shook her head and sneezed.

“Pepper,” Kirstie decided with a broad grin. “From now on, that’s her name!”

“
All
the horses can stay!” she told Lisa the next morning.

While Matt and Sandy were busy with the usual Sunday transfer of guests from the ranch to Denver Airport, the girls had decided to ride out along Meltwater Trail to Miners’ Ridge. It was a chance for a quiet, peaceful trek without having to think about visitors or stick closely to the trails.

“For a while back there, I was afraid things weren’t working out,” Kirstie confessed. They’d reached the ridge, with Dead Man’s Canyon below and a track up through the ponderosa pines to Lisa’s grandfather’s trailer park. Rocky took the ridge without faltering, despite the steep drop to one side. He looked keenly at the grassed-over mounds of waste rock from the old gold mine, decided they were OK, and walked steadily on. Not even the rush of water over the rocks and the loud, foaming cascade into the canyon put him off as Kirstie led the way.

“I knew Rocky would make the grade!” Lisa said cheerfully. “Thanks to you, of course!”

“And to Charlie.” Kirstie reminded her of the young wrangler’s help. She breathed deeply and relaxed in the saddle as they left the ridge behind. “How about visiting your grandpa?” she suggested.

“Sure.” Lisa brought Lucky up alongside Rocky, and for a while they walked without talking. Their silence brought out the mule deer from the bushes and long, dry grass which grew on the open slopes. The slender, large-eared deer wandered by in groups of five or six, the cautious doe leading her fawns and year-old young to better grazing land below the ridge.

“Lennie made Matt’s day yesterday,” Kirstie told Lisa once they reached the more level, broader track that led to Lone Elm. “He’s sending some people from the trailer park to the ranch. Matt’s had dollar signs in his eyes all morning!”

Lisa grinned. “I heard that. Grandpa says the Santos family drove all the way from New Jersey in a big RV to take their vacation in the Rockies. But I guess they’ve had it up to here with roughing it. Now they want a week in a nice cabin with a fireplace and a porch and someone to do the cooking and the dishes!”

“That sounds good to me, too!” Kirstie laughed. Up ahead, she could already see the entrance to the trailer park, and beyond that the neat, log-built reception building nestled under the tall, solitary elm tree from which the park took its name.

“Hey, that could be Jerry Santos and company moving out right now!” Lisa spotted a high-sided, silver motor home parked by the side of the office. It gleamed in the sunlight: a giant vehicle decked out with big steel fenders, ladders up to the roof, windows with fancy blinds. In the cab sat a woman and three small kids, and down by the office door stood a man in T-shirt and shorts. “Let’s go see!”

Quick off the mark, Lucky broke into a trot and then a lope along the smooth track. Less eager to break the peaceful spell of their mountain ride, Kirstie held Rocky back for a few seconds. She saw more deer and stopped to watch a buck rub his beautiful antlers against a pine tree, listening to the scrape and hollow rattle of horn against bark. In the undergrowth behind, a young, pale brown doe with huge, dark eyes darted from bush to bush.

Glancing ahead, Kirstie saw that Lisa and Lucky had already reached the entrance to the trailer park. She decided to give Lisa time to say hello to her grandpa before she caught up to them. But then she frowned. The fair-haired man in shorts was stepping toward the silver motor home and climbing up into the cab as Lisa arrived. He was turning on the engine. The giant vehicle was starting to move out of the park.

“Lisa, watch out for Lucky!” Kirstie yelled. Her voice was drowned by the engine.

And now she had other things to worry about. The motor home crawled through the exit, beneath the overhead sign that Lennie Goodman had erected only that spring. Thirty feet long, reflecting the sun’s rays, engine growling, it advanced onto the road.

“For crying out loud!” she muttered. Didn’t the driver have enough sense to wait until she and Rocky had ridden by? Though broader than the steep mountain trails, the road couldn’t take both motor home and horse. And anyway, Rocky was beginning to act up.

He saw the square front of the tall cab, the gleaming metal grille, the flash of sunlight reflected on glass, the movement of passengers inside. For a few moments, Rocky stood stock-still.

Kirstie tightened the reins. “Back up!” she whispered. If Rocky would pull back a few feet, she could guide him up a side track, out of the way of the slowly advancing motor home. “Come on, Rocky, let’s get out of here!”

No way was the driver going to stop, she realized. Maybe he thought he had the right of way in his huge motor home and expected a mere horse and rider to automatically give way. Or maybe he just didn’t realize he was giving her a problem. In any case, he kept right on coming.

She felt the mustang flinch. Instead of backing to safety, he chose to advance with edgy, uneven strides. Kirstie pulled on the reins. “Come on, Rocky, what’s going on?” Why wouldn’t he do as he was told?

He stopped. His head was up, ears flat; the old, angry signs. And every muscle was tense, every nerve on edge as he skittered across the dirt road, defying the oncoming driver.

The man at the wheel must have seen the horse by now. He was a hundred yards away and still creeping forward. Either he was mean or stupid. “Stop!” Grasping the reins in one hand, Kirstie made a firm signal with the other.

No response. The giant vehicle kept on coming. There was a roar, a cloud of black fumes from the exhaust, a swing off the road into the gravel and brushwood, as if the driver had momentarily lost control. A screech of brakes, the churn of loose stones under the massive wheels; the inexperienced driver fought to bring the tilting motor home back onto the level ground.

“Easy, boy!” Kirstie knew deep down that she was losing him. He was ignoring her voice, the touch of the reins. His muscles were bunched, his head straining. Still she tried to get him back.

But it was no good. With a toss of his head, Rocky rested back deep on his haunches, then threw himself forward in a terrific buck. Kirstie flew with him in a high arc, grabbing the saddle horn as she went, legs flying from the stirrups, head jerked back in a sudden whiplash movement. Her hat flew off, her hair fell loose as she clung to the saddle and felt Rocky’s back feet land with a thudding jolt.

It was then, much too late, that the driver must have realized she was in deep trouble. He put his foot on the brake and trundled to a halt. The motor home hissed, spouted out blue smoke, then sat motionless astride the road.

With Kirstie still clinging tight, trying to slide her feet back into the stirrups and regain hold of the reins, Rocky arched his back and stamped his feet. A huge fear had him in its grip. His head went up again, his mane whipping against her arms. Then he reared and twisted, throwing her back and sideways. She held on, felt the bunched fury of his muscles.

Then there were footsteps running down the road, two figures appeared from behind the stationary motor home. Kirstie glimpsed Lisa and Lennie Goodman coming to help. But Rocky spun away, rearing once, twice, three times. She was flung backward and forward, biting her tongue hard as her jaw fell open, then snapped shut with the violent rise and fall. There was blood in her mouth, a salty, metallic taste, but no time to feel pain.

The mustang whirled, turned, and reared. It was the wild Rocky; the frightened, crazy Rocky of the rodeo. An old fear had exploded in his brain, making him fight to be rid of his rider, to rage up the mountain to freedom once more.

“Hang on, Kirstie!” Lisa cried.

She gripped the horn, pressed her legs against the mustang’s flanks, her head jerked this way and that. Already dizzy and weak, she felt him veer to the side and charge at the steep slope that bordered the road. There was a boulder in his path that he would smash against unless he took off and jumped…she soared with him and landed, felt him thunder on up the rough hillside.